Lets go Photoshopping, I am a photoshopaholic…..

Isn’t this amazing? Salvador found this piece of hardware here on the farm and noticed the face so we took a picture which I then took to the photoshop, put the picture straight and gave with the darkening brush a little touch to accentuate the nose and a little stroke on the left of the mouth. Only so lightly, the strength at 14. Next thing is to play with the levels, here of course I made it darker, took it then to the colour enhancer and the face came leaping out. Fun he? Like that, one can see images everywhere really, we always see some incredible faces in the branches and leaves of trees or the clouds, free for everyone to look at, forever changing into incredible patterns and stories. Children take the time if you make them attend to it but in general mostly everybody is too busy to see.

There are so many possibilities with the photoshop but you need time a little imagination or talent and patience.
 This kind of thing is quiet simple, just play for a while with the possibilities you can find and off you go. The real picture here was more difficult to retouch because it was very damaged by time and since I had printed it myself it was not well fixed so it got discoloured spots on it. I learned photography from this particular photographer who clicked this picture, I did the styling and setting up and later did the whole darkroom thing. When I was coming out of school one day, I was about 19 and went to the Academie of Fine Arts, and was looking in the window of this Photoshop, when a little skinny, in my mind then, old man came out and asked me very nervously if he could make my portrait to put in the window and I thought it was funny and agreed so he started putting green lights and blue lights in my face, changing lamps and spots here and there and finally made some pictures with that big Camera with plates. About a week later when I passed I saw my picture in the window, an artistic shot full of colours, well, this is 50 years ago so it was different, I liked it and later I went several times with a girlfriend and had him make very funny shots of us which I would style and direct, his name was van Buren. On my afternoons off he would teach me the darkroom because I wanted to work the pictures myself. It was great fun, this wonderful moment when the picture is in the liquid and it slowly comes up…  I have had a variation of darkrooms in bathrooms and closets and even a very real one not long ago in Amsterdam. Love making pictures and now with the photoshop almost all pictures can be made to look good. Not professional, that is something else but at least the people who do have a feeling for it, can go ahead.

For some things you need the real Photoshop (Adobe), I have an 8 but there is already a 12, they are getting more and more sophisticated. Here I used the Filter in the galleries of Filters and then “Style”, just some click, click, click…
 then there is this, restoring the whole thing

 This is more precise and you do need patience here and it could have been even better but it really does take time, this already took me an hour!
Then I love to close up! Remember the movie “Blow-up” by Antonioni? With Verushka and David Hemmings.. ( if you did not see it, have a go) sometimes you see things in close up that you did not even see, like in the movie. Well the other day in the car on our way to Sherwood where we do our shopping, we saw in a field about a million birds and for some reason they all flew up and it was a cloud of birds

so I tried to get my camera out of my bag and open her and quick, quick, but too late… the birds had flown. I took a picture anyway from the car while we drove and when I closed up I saw that funny thing I had of course not noticed before and you probably also not, but one bird is flying the other way, like a general overlooking the army that is moving… Ha ha, are they not incredible? The birds I mean…

YES, TODAY I TAKE YOU ON A FASHION SHOOT FOR ITALIAN VOGUE!                      THE PHOTOGRAPHER IS STEVEN MEISEL AND THE LOCATION IS THE KOREAN CEMETERY IN DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES.

 At 8 o’clock sharp the chauffeur is at the door and off we go in a shiny black Mercedes, hair washed and a clean face, (only red lips because I don’t go anywhere without them) an other adventure! Never worked with Steven so that is fun and very curious who is going to be there. It took about 3 quarters of an hour to get there because of the heavy traffic most of us know so well. Upon arriving I was guided immediately to the breakfast table full of goodies, mostly very healthy ones. It was going to be a hot day… and there she was, beautiful Linda E:”hello. how are you, nice to meet you”

and slowly more and more people came on the scene: master  hairdresser Guido and his 5 disciples, Pat Mc Grath, the make up artists queen, with 5 or 6 of her followers, Vogue stylist Karl Templer and his band, several assistants, caterers, all wonderful people, very relaxed.

 

 

Finally Steven arrived and the commotion starts, fittings, this for you that for you, hmmm, that will look good on you  ,or no better this and so on. There were about 8 tents to accommodate the make up tables, A cabin to relax, a cabin to change, tables and tables of accessories and racks and racks of the most gorgeous clothes, YSL ( in who’s honour this shoot was), Chanel, Dior, Dolce y Cabana, Gaulthier, everything black!  Beautiful Bags by Chanel and Vuitton, great shoes but such high heels that even when I put them a few minutes, strictly for the picture, I got already cramps in my legs.

Steven knows exactly what he wants and does not shoot rolls and rolls of film, everybody is attend and the props are working, rain, fans for wind and blowing leaves. A few shots and they see the result immediately because they have an incredible set up going on.

 

 

One sits around a lot because they are preparing for the next shot and that is indeed a lot of work, there are

 

7 models here, 4 women and 3 men and each has to be made up and coifed and then dressed and then all the accessories, which take time to sort out: this hat with that gloves, no, better with the long gloves and a bracelet!

The make up artist that was assigned to me was very funny and entertaining, his name is Jeffrey A. Kyle (on Face Book).

The girls were wonderful and extremely beautiful I thought, good time to be a model now…..…

 

The lunch was fantastic  and everything went smoothly, a great day all together.

Around 5 or 6 the chauffeur was ready to bring me back, there were a lot of black cars that is for sure. Next day same thing…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

…  this is what it takes….…                                                    

  and that is how it goes.…

It was Pat’s birthday, so there was a delicious cake and champagne to close the day. The wrap up, as they say!

… with some long moments in between, for Vogue no one is in a hurry because it is not that every minute costs a fortune like for publicity

 

 

 

 

interview by Linda Morand for MMM’s.In this interview you can read more about it and if you are still not bored

 

 

THIS IS THE STORY, here you can see some pictures of the Vogue spread.

Hope you enjoyed this one, I thought it was a good occasion to show the pictures I made that day… otherwise what do I do with them?

 

Sometimes it is difficult to decide what to write about, not because there is a lack of ideas here but on the contrary there are so many. I figure I will just start and see what it comes to. For one , and this is really true, this morning I said to Salvador; It is funny, everybody here sees a lot of deer in their backyards and here we hardly ever see one. Months ago one crossed the road right in front of our car but that was it. A bit later we were having breakfast and I look out and what do I see? Not 1 but 2 deer crossing the backyard!

Hardly had time to get my camera and I only got one at a time….  But don’t you think that is funny? Did the deer come because I was thinking of them or was I thinking of deer because they were going to come?

If you pay attention it happens all the time and it has something to do with your attention being fixed on a certain thing or person? Like when our baby was a baby we used to go walk with her in a baby-car and I noticed all of a sudden there were quiet a lot of women with baby cars in the street, never had noticed them before. Or when you are pregnant you notice a lot of women pregnant and so on…

No, today I wanted to talk a little bit about Julita, this morning I came across a picture of her and a ton of memories came streaming in. Julita was our land lady in Canary Islands, in a place called Guia, about 20 miles from Las Palmas. Salvador was already there when I arrived from America and had rented that place from Julita, which was a top floor in a building that never got finished ( the Spanish are good at that) but had 2 floors. Downstairs was Julita’s domain because she was very heavy and could not walk the stairs. She had an enormous “kitchen” which was from top till bottom filled with antiques and old stuff, plants hanging everywhere, some old fridges full of I don’t know what, mostly bloody meat as she had that dog that was enormous and looked like a lion, never saw one like that, and everybody was scared to death of him. If you could wrestle yourself through all the stuff , watching out not to bump your head on all the cans and pots and treasures that were hanging from the ceiling, there was a table to sit and have a coffee amidst the incredible screams of about a 100 birds and a few Persian cats in cages that had their way of smelling too. Julita was beautiful, always immaculate made up, black eyes and red lips. She loved to dress nice but never could find anything to please her because of her size. but she had an old sewing machine, the pedal kind, and as smart and convincing as she was, she had me make her a bunch of outfits, even a bra because she could not find one big enough and here in the USA I see them all over and when I see them I always have to think of Julita.

Here is Julita posing in the wedding dress I made her from materials she had, which where for curtains but she had a lot of it. It was a sleeveless dress with a jacket and it really looked great and beside her is her husband, not yet changed in his suit for which he would wait till the last minute. Behind them a painting of them young she asked Salvador to make.

Her bedroom was quiet small and had a door with iron bars like they have in jail and always triple locked, whether she was in or out the room. She once was attacked while in bed and they had stolen all her gold, Julita loved gold, always wearing a lot of it so now the people that came to see her had to talk through the iron bars. We were the only ones more or less that were allowed to go in there and had a visit if you could find a place to sit between the dolls and other things she collected. The walls were full of clocks, the ones that say Coo-coo and the once that announce each half hour with a clang! I counted once 37 of them and plenty of mirrors of course. She loved to be in bed, she would sit like a doll, with stretched legs because she could not bend them, on top of some colourful blankets, because there on top of the bed she was the most comfortable and lets not forget she was well into her 60ties and very very heavy. In the time we were there she got married, although they had been married already but something had happened and they had to do it over again, they had 3 grown sons and he, the husband, only came home the weekends. He had a great love for whisky and together they had some incredible screaming sessions which was taken over by the incredible bird they had who could copy anything, so at times you thought someone had a fit but it was just the bird, no, unbelievable, he or she could do the phone ringing or my sewing machine going or the cats miaow or the birds sing, anything really and he kept calling a name which was not of any one known in the house and Julita sometimes got things nobody knew from where…. but that is a whole book, she is like a personage of the Almodovar movies to say the least. There was a room downstairs that was rented to a transvestite who had gorgeous long blond hair, boobs and everything. She had one leg shorter than the other so she could not walk well and did not work. She had a wonderful collection of Barby dolls and was very kind but did not want to know much about the other people that lived in the garage that had become a room. They were a couple and when I was saw her I thought what a pretty girl, very modern and nice looking. It turned out she was a boy but a girl, and the boyfriend who told me once that his mother had him his whole life tied to the bed, he could walk around a little bit but was tied up and had to do his necessities right there and other unbelievable horror stories, but that could be an other book by itself  and then there was an other transvestite of whom I forgot the name but he, she, had Aids and nobody wanted to have anything to do with that person but Julita always had an open door and food. Then there was el Padrino, who would come over everyday and sit with Julita for a while, he was very elegant and she would get all beautiful and dressed up and Raquel, the girl that came to clean… they were all caracters and could be an other book but this is getting too long so I leave you with an other picture of Julita with a dress I made of a very nasty material she picked up somewhere……

Guia 1998.

Lets talk movies because it is Golden Globes and soon Oscar time, not that I want particular talk about those because did not see them all but saw a bunch of movies and one of them was a French comedy with Vanessa Paradise and Romain Duris called “Heart breaker”. Very nice movie, the French are good at romantic comedies and Vanessa ( the wife of Johnny Depp if you did not know) is so beautiful and different, very well dressed and lovely and funny. I saw her once in the streets of Paris, no make up but so pretty and she smiled to me! Romain is very good too. Have a look at Vanessa, you can Google her, sorry did not get the link here!

Also saw Inception and it was OK, personally I don’t like all that shooting and blowing up of cars and buildings although one has to admire the special computer effects they can make and Leonardo is always good to see, none of the other actors left a picture on my mind. He is always very well dressed, did you notice? He is elegant in a his own particular way. You think he has a stylist who dresses him? But even so, he would have the last word so I think it is him.

The basic story is also very interesting and it won’t be too far off that these kind of things are really possible, they already are studying the chip thing where they plant a chip, they are tiny, in your neck or arm and connected to your brain so others can see what you think?!!! No really, there is an English Scientist seriously working on that and plans to do the experiment with his wife to read each others mind.  Then we saw a wonderful Indian movie called: “Guzaarish” with Ashwarya Rai and Hrithik Roshan both incredible actors and both very good looking, she is as gorgeous as was Sophia Loren, as modern as Angela Jolie and as good an actress as Betty Davis. Yet, I am sure you never heard of her. It is also very well directed and the picture is awesome. The story is about a magician who because of an accident becomes lame and can only move his head and he wants to die after living for 12 years with that, A tear-sucker, I know, but the Indians when they are good … Oh and by the way the story plays in Goa, which is of course in India, but since the time it belonged to the Portuguese a lot of western customs were introduced and Goa also became a “Colony” of free thinkers and surfers, good life seekers and retired employees of any kind, sure you heard about it. The first time I was there, 1961, there were just splendid white empty beaches too beautiful for words, ten years later when I went back there with Salvador and Alejandro, it was crowded with foreigners, it looked like Woodstock. Anyway liked the movie. We also have seen the original Swedish “The girl with the Dragon tattoo” movies and honestly I don’t see why they have to make an American version, its perfect as it is, the girl is incredible. We saw it already a while ago and yes, wonderful, but now they are making such a fuzz about the American version by the same director who made “the Social network” which I did not see yet but is in my opinion a very interesting subject because we are actually using Face Book….… am very curious, see you there…

Maybe you would like to try your hands on this cake, it is easy and delicious, only danger is to get addicted. Anyway I have made it a hundred times and it always comes out a little different although I always use the same recipe. It’s called “Quatre Quarts” by the famous Tante Marie. You take lets say : 3 eggs, you weigh them, yes you need a little scale, then you put the equivalent amount of butter, sugar and flour. Separate the eggs, mix softened butter, yolks ( a few drops of lemon if you like or chopped nuts) and sugar, don’t forget a pinch of salt, blend in flour and lastly blend in the stiff beaten egg whites and voila! About 20 min ( or until knife comes out dry) oven at 375. I am not that great a cook but everybody likes this one, try….  and happy munching!

The day started out at 0 degrees Celsius which is 32 Fahrenheit, Funny that there is such a different nomination, explanation for the same thing and each find in their mind their system the easiest to understand or even the best. So with all other things that occupy our minds, religion, justice, habits, traditions, customs and even Fashion. We are born in a certain place and educated in a certain way which makes us what we are today ( that rhymes) and as far as I am concerned its all respectable as long as no harm is done. An other funny thing is how little we know. I say  “we” because it happens to a lot of us, we just don’t think about it, don’t question things as somehow we think we know but you can notice at times when children ask questions, simple things like how does the spider make his web? How does he start and gets from one end to the other? Or how does pepper grow? And some deep questions like where do we go when we are dead? Then again we believe and accept a lot of things without questioning, many believe in Fairy Tales, so to speak, while others search their own brain and mind which in my opinion is the most interesting thing to do in this life. Being conscious of the moment because there only really is NOW, there was a past and future will be, but now = now! And the only thing we can be certain of right now.

.This is what the sky looked like this morning, thought it was beautiful

Finally finished the coat I showed you I was working on and this is what it looks like inside out which for me is outside in…

Salvador made the pictures in front of what they call here “the shop” but is a working space full of tools and stuff, some really old. Right in front where we live. I did make up for the occasion (usually I only wear red lips) but still had to do a lot of photo shopping. The wind in the hair was a stroke of luck and we actually took only a few shots compared to what a fashion photographer would shoot!

…And the other way around. The original hand knitted coat from Finland which Kecia gave me. Made pockets, love pockets, and the lining of course so it is reversible. I like to make reversible things and almost all the things I made are wearable inside out, will show one day my collection. Everything else I am wearing in the pictures I made, even the boots and belt, both found on Ebay, except the gloves, they were a present from Alejandro.

Then there is the fur! I love fur but I know that some of you are very sensitive about that and don’t wear fur because of the animal cruelty involved. I am certainly against animal cruelty as well but I do eat meat and I do wear leather shoes and bags and girls you can be sure that your favourite Louboutins or Manolo’s, are made of the finest leathers and those come from the youngest animals. In any case I like to tell you that I got this fur in Amsterdam in a vintage store. It was a stole I would never wear but the fur was so soft and perfect and beautiful and really the best thing I feel I can do for this poor animals is to show how much I appreciate the beauty and warmth it gives or do you think it is better it rots away anonymously?

Talking about animals… this little bird flew against our glass door and fell dead on the floor… we buried it.

You know I think when you click on the picture it becomes big, isn’t that fantastic?

Ha ha, today I discovered the way to change the Font colours.…

Salvador is a big part of my life, we have been together since 1967- now you are calculating and yes that makes more then 43 years, yes, yes its a long time. He was 19 when we met (again calculating) and I was 26. I know, we are getting there! Age and getting old is a subject I like to dive into with you an other time, now I want to show some of Salvadors work as his paintings are really worth looking at. He is always painting and he has been painting always- he had his first exhibition when he just turned 17 in New York and that all the way from Canary Islands where he is born and was then living. Yes, he is Spanish, born right in front of the beach in Las Palmas. We met in Marakech, (Marocco) very romantic and he was sooo handsome but not untill he showed me his drawings I really deeply fell in love. Years have past and I still feel the same.
We traveled the world together and lived in many different places but lets get to the pictures because they are supposed to speak a thousand words.

 In Marakech, 1967

Me and Alejandro, our son, in Ibiza

                                                       in Marbella ( Spain)

Paris..

Paris, we lived there for 10 years.

 Paris, my “Tunique Unique”
. Paris, here with Alejandro

 Paris, Susan Bottomly and me.

Well, this is already a lot and I hardly started, I just got barely to my portraits but an other time more, like paintings of most of the places we lived in…. like this one

Madrid, our house.

LOVE and PEACE!
OH, I copied this from a blog of a friend of Salvador who lives in Sri Lanka and writes a very nice blog: A VIEW FROM SRI LANKA.

My mention of having a photographic portrait of me when I was a 1960’s beat poet being hung this year in London’s National Portrait Gallery, stirred Salvador Maron to send me this sketch he drew of me in 1965 when I had given up being a beat to be a beach boy in Las Palmas, Canary Islands (while writing a novel, of course).
Salvador was 17 at the time and is now a hugely popular artist based in California where his striking paintings sell for five-figure sums.

Salvador’s selfportrait   Paris 1977

OH yes, I’m a great recycler, recycling whatever I can! This goes good on the music of “yes I’m a great pretender” by the Platters. Saw them on Youtube and wow, where they good! Is so funny how things are so soon forgotten. The other day we were in a shop talking to the young woman that was attending us and somehow we got to mention Marlon Brando and Salvador asked her if she knew who he was and she really had to think hard but knew but when we asked who was Rock Hudson she had no idea and maybe you too not but he was my idol when I was a teenager. And so things come and go and faster and faster. So yes, recycling is a good thing and we all should do it. Here in Oregon you have to pay a monthly fee to get a recycle bin but it is worth it, why cut trees if we can recycle the paper? And all that nasty plastic, RECYCLE! Its for the good of everyone. It’s a bit of work, you have to wash the pots and bottles but then again what is 5 minutes in a day? Batteries? People just throw them in the garbage and they end up in the sea killing the fish which we love to eat so much and honestly I don’t know yet what to do with them here, you probably can bring them somewhere where they take care of it, for the moment I have them in a pot under the sink collecting them until I know where to bring them. In Holland they pass by with a truck and a microphone to say they are there and you can bring them all your dangerous stuff like batteries and paints, wonderful. In LA the homeless do a good job checking all the garbage and taking out glass and paper. Also recycling objects is great, when you are tired of something don’t throw it away if it is in good condition but bring it to Goodwill or Salvation army. Currently Goodwill is my favourite store and they are putting up new ones all the time, super organised. You have to check the area where it is located, the better the area the better the things they have there. Real vintage is hard to find but I found some lovely silk dresses for next to nothing for the grandchildren to dress up or just to look at it and marvel on the workmanship, for sure that is one of the reasons I like old things and can enjoy looking at the way it is made and the quality of some things were so much better that they still function. The other day we saw a community garage sale, these are particular marvellous because there is a lot, and we saw this lamp that had an interesting shape but I did not see the shade and there was no knowing it would work so I looked and was tempted but thought forget it, too much work to repair and they asked $10. Later I saw two girls looking at it very interested and I felt a pang, like oh oh I should have… so I went back, looked again, not for the money but it is a big thing and quiet ugly really, then the man said to me: you can have it and oh by the way, here is the shade and he pointed at that beautiful stone shade that went with it, WOW! Once home I repaired and painted it because it all was a bit of ugly brown and voila,

 

love it and like that many other things. When we move on it all goes to friends or back to Goodwill! Love to recycle jewelry too, vintage pieces of quality are my passion, can marvel at them again and again.

 It’s a rainy day but for the time of year quiet mild, not cold at all as a matter of fact and I even saw a rainbow( had to take a picture of course). For the rest I have been investigating some blogs that came my way and I must say there are some fantastic blogs around and before I get that deep a year will have passed if I don’t give up. Still doing my gym and dance exercises every day and am a bit hurting but that will get better, one has to move to get the energy flowing.

Now the question is what to blog about? In my mind I would like to make a sort of Diary or “reality” blog and talk about all kind of things that come to my mind and share with you all kinds of things we do or did. I got really dizzy after being for hours in the Cyber jungle and learned a few more things but still need a lot more time and help. In the meantime I finished the necklace with the cross I started working on the other day. A while ago I made one and it came out quiet good so I made an other one.
I love crosses, great shape, actually the shape of our body with stretcht arms and that is of course why they have that shape so people could be nailed to it. It’s not that I like the cross for religious reasons, I just love the shape and there are endless variations, in gold,silver,nickel,bronze, with precious stones, with rhinestones, beads, filigree, very ornamented or very simple, its been around for centuries and has been in Fashion always. Coco Chanel designed some beauties and so did Nina Ricci and of course Yves Saint Laurent, not to mention the ones the Pope is wearing. Then Madonna has the reputation to have been the first to put a cross in her ear but that is not so. When we lived in Ibiza in the beginning of the 70-ties, Salvador put a cross in his ear and called it his “Cruz pendiente”, pendiente being the Spanish for earring but also for “pending”.

In the 80-ties the cross was very hot too and I even made shoes and boots with bejewelled crosses on them.

Anyway, these here are made of Fimo clay on a Plexiglas base but it can be anything that is thin and strong and cuttable, then sculpt the clay on it, set the stones to make the shape and take them out again, bake in the oven, paint it 14 c liquid gold and glue the stones in their place. I made a series of them when we lived in LA in the 90-ties, without backing, just the clay. The trouble is that like that they are more delicate and can break. I know Susan Sarandon got one and who knows where the rest went.

 

One of the boots with cross 1989

Ok, this is all the blogging I can do for today, going to see a movie and if it is worth it I tell you about it.